Tag: Military
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Wave Motion wins $1.3M award to work on prototype jet-gun launcher for U.S. Navy
Casey Dunn, Finn van Donkelaar and James Penna show off Wave Motion Launch’s Big Iron demonstration jet-gun launcher. (Wave Motion Photo) Everett, Wash.-based Wave Motion Launch Corp. has been awarded $1.3 million to support the venture’s efforts to develop a barrel-less launcher technology that could eventually be used to send payloads to space. Wave Motion…
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Soyuz 2.1b Launches Russian Early Warning Satellite
At 01:09 UTC, or 4:09 A.M. local time in Moscow, a Soyuz 2.1b rocket launched carrying the Tundra 15L early warning satellite for the Russian Ministry of Defense. The launch occurred from the Plesetsk Cosmodrome in northern Russia. Plesetsk is located in the Arkhangelsk oblast. The Cosmodrome has been in operation since 1957 and is…
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Russia tests anti-satellite missile, debris disrupts International Space Station
Russia’s Kosmos 1408 satellite was destroyed in orbit earlier on Tuesday in what appears to have been a demonstration of Russia’s Nudol anti-satellite missile. While the Russian government has not yet acknowledged the cause of the satellite’s breakup, concerns about debris from the satellite have already disrupted operations aboard the International Space Station and could…
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Space Force awards $87.5M to Blue Origin, Rocket Lab, SpaceX and ULA for testing
An artist’s conception shows Blue Origin’s New Glenn rocket on the rise. (Blue Origin Illustration) The U.S. Space Force’s Space Systems Command today announced awards totaling $87.5 million to support prototype commercial projects relating to next-generation rocket testing and enhancements to make upper stages more resilient. The awards were made under the aegis of the…
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Karman Systems acquires Systima to target hypersonic and space technology
Systima Technologies moved into its current headquarters in Mukilteo, Wash., last year. (Systima Photo) Mukilteo, Wash.-based Systima Technologies has been acquired by Karman Missile & Space Systems as part of Karman’s push into the markets for space and hypersonic system infrastructure. Karman, headquartered in Los Angeles, was created just in the past year with backing…
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Xplore wins $2M contract from Pentagon initiative to speed up satellite development
An artist’s conception shows the Xcraft spacecraft platform in orbit. (Xplore Illustration) Redmond, Wash.-based Xplore says it has received a $2 million contract from National Security Innovation Capital, a hardware development accelerator within the Pentagon’s Defense Innovation Unit, to speed up work on Xplore’s Xcraft platform. The payload-hosting spacecraft is due for its first launch…
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Microsoft and Ball Aerospace enlist the cloud to speed up Space Force’s data flow
An artist’s conception shows Telesat’s Phase 1 LEO satellite in orbit. (Telesat Illustration) How will Pentagon planners cope with the torrents of data that are expected to rain down from a constellation of satellites monitoring hotspots from low Earth orbit? Microsoft and Ball Aerospace say they’ve demonstrated that the cloud can handle it — and…
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Russia launches classified payload to start 2021 campaign
The Russian Aerospace Forces, itself a division of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation, has launched a Lotos reconnaissance satellite to compliment their next-generation Liana SIGINT (signal intelligence) satellite system. Liftoff took place at around 20:45 UTC (15:45 EST) on Tuesday, 2 February 2021, from Site 43 at the Plesetsk Cosmodrome – located 800…
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Pentagon worries that satellite attacks could spark ‘mutually assured destruction’
Satellite constellations are becoming increasingly important for military communications. (DARPA Illustration) In the years ahead, the long-running nightmare of the nuclear Cold War — mutually assured destruction — could return in a new context on the final frontier, a Pentagon adviser said today at a Seattle-based space policy conference. Brad Townsend, a space strategy and…
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BlackSky will add sharper focus and night vision to future Earth-watching satellites
One of BlackSky’s Global satellites sits on a stand that’s visible at the center of this view of the LeoStella satellite factory floor in Tukwila, Wash. (GeekWire Photo / Alan Boyle) BlackSky’s satellites are already producing frequently updated, high-resolution views of planet Earth — but now the company says its next-generation spacecraft will kick things…